Anyone ever have a bad range day?

[bikemutt]

I had high hopes for a great day shooting my favorite rifle with it's favorite food; no matter what I did, how hard I tried, I couldn't get it together. Sub-MOA sounded like a request at a restaurant: "may I substitute MUD for the MOA please?". The target may as well have been a shotgun patterning board.

Anyone else every have a range day gone bad?

 

[jcwit]

Well, Ya!

 

[Red Wind]

Sure have! Got a bad nosebleed after firing 50 rounds of 270 grain .44 Mag from my 5" Smith 629 a few months ago. Had to retire early that day.

 

[Mousegun]

A while back the AR was laying on the bench with a Bushnell Elite scope firmly attached.

My sleeve caught something on the gun and down it went landing clean on the front end of the scope. There were no marks made and I thought I may have gotten away with it.

My shots were not even on the backstop. I went home and looked things over. The scope didn't look right so I loosened the mounting screws and rotated it. The front end went up and down about 3/8 of an inch or so.

Now what was I to do with my $300 paper weight???

The thing that got it into this position was the sharp blow it took when it hit the ground, so what the hey. I rotated the scope to the high spot, tightened it back down, took a towel and put it over the front, took a rubber mallet and whacked it a good one.

Loosened the mounts and rotated it again. It moved up and down a lot less. Repeat.

I got to the point where I was measuring the up and down in thousandths of an inch with my dial gauge.

When I got it as close as I dared, I stopped and at the next range session all I had to do was three clicks on the vertical to be back on target.

The scope tracks perfectly throughout its range.

Bad day gone good.

 

[bangswitch]

A bad day at the range still beats a good day doing something other than shooting

My shooting is fairly consistent, there have been days when groups were not to my liking, but the only really "bad" day I've had was right after mounting my scope on my .308 bolt gun. I didn't have quite as much eye relief as I needed; I was still trying to get my cheek weld correct and got kissed by the rear of the scope just where the inside edge of my eyebrow is. Didn't think anything about it until the RSO told me I had blood running down my nose. It was running pretty good, too, and I had to hold pressure for about 5 minutes for it to quit.

Looked in the mirror when I got home; didn't need stitches, but it left a nice curved mark for several weeks until it healed. A couple of guys at work who regularly shoot immediately knew what had happened and laughed. Of course, I readjusted the scope for a bit more relief.

 

[osprey176]

I left a range early on "Public Shoot Day" a few years back. The new members were working off their dues by being saftey Nazis. I got yelled at by a clueless twit woman who insisted that I open the action of my muzzloader. She didn't care what kind of gun it was,but I better open it up RIGHT NOW or get thrown off the range.She also told me to keep it pointed downrange,not pointed up when I was loading it! Another RSO who was familiar with muzzloaders came up and quietly told her to back off,that I was ok. She hovered closely,giving me the stink eye.Then my .243 had a failure to extract,just as a couple guys with a 300 WSM and a muzzle brake set up right next to me and started blasting away.All in all, it was a pretty lousy range day.

 

[arspeukinen]

I forgot to take magazines once.

So I created this mantra:
PASKALTTTT ("from ****ttt")

Patruunat (ammo)
Aseet (guns)
Suojat (protection)
Kotelot (holsters)
Alkoholi (refreshments)
Lippaat (magazines)
Taulut (targets)
Teipit (tapes)
Tarrat (stickers)
Työkalut (tools - chronos, timers included)

Dropped my percentage of forgetting things.

 

[Scooter22]

Yup. Was shooting a old Mossberg tube feed .22 when I had a feed problem. It wouldn't easily clear so I stood up and looked down at the chamber area. A shell was in the lifter and one being held captive by the extractors. I pulled the bolt back very gently to eject the shell and it exploded. The ejector is claw shaped and the end is shrp and pointed so it acted like a FP. Of course I had removed my shooting glasses because they were fogging and slipping off. I felt the impact all over my face. I went to the eye doctor and only had some irritation from the powder. Thank God I didn't get a piece of case in the eye. You can see the bullet that jumped to the chamber. That little .22 had a h*** of alot of force. Keep those glasses on.

 

[JR24]

PASKALTTTT ("from ****ttt")

Patruunat (ammo)
Aseet (guns)
Suojat (protection)
Kotelot (holsters)
Alkoholi (refreshments)
Lippaat (magazines)
Taulut (targets)
Teipit (tapes)
Tarrat (stickers)
Työkalut (tools - chronos, timers included)

Whaaaaa... Oh, Finland. Gotcha!

I often have poor range days with my pistols, can't group worth a squat, can't settle down my hands/mind to keep a good sight picture/trigger press. Happens usually when I drink too much coffee in the morning.

Don't have that issue with rifles, but mostly because I don't really shoot rifles MOA or sub-MOA all that much, more to sight in my deer rifle and to plink with a .22 or .223.

 

[smalls]

99% of my range time is practicing drawing and firing. I've had days where I think to myself "Man, I hope I don't get mugged on the way home", my shooting was so terrible.

 

[jlr1962]

I always run a patch through my guns at home prior to going to the range. I left the bolt from my primary rifle at home one day. I did get some quality time with my secondary rifle that day.

 

[MedWheeler]

Anyone ever not not have a bad range day?

 

[silicosys4]

Haven't had a bad range day yet.
The closes I've come involved my first year production winchester 9422 that was knocked off the bench and landed at just the right angle to break a part inside the gun.
Luckily there was no cosmetic damage, and the part was not too difficult to source and replace.

 

[627PCFan]

Any day where your gun doesn't blow up is a good range day

And no I haven't blown up a gun yet thank god.

 

[Sauer Grapes]

I've had days I couldn't hit the ground, let alone the target.
Went to a match one time with my 40S&W mags. To bad I was shooting my 9mm that day. oh well.....

 

[Jason_W]

Oh yeah. One summer when I was still living in my home state of Vermont, I had just finished stapling my only targets to the stand when a brutal and unexpected thunder shower rolled through the area and turned those targets to a pulpy mush.

 

[ConstitutionCowboy]

Yes, and I'm glad it happened at the range and not during a crisis.

My bad day at the range resulted in a broken part that locked up my Walther PPK.

Woody

 

[moxie]

What medwheeler said in #12.

 

[jrod]

NO SUCH THING!!!!
Being at the Range is better than being anywhere else!
( exceptin' quality time with the Wife...)

 

[bikemutt]

I'm happier knowing I'm not alone out there fellow THR members. The mind, the body, the rifle just didn't come together for me that day. I got to thinking the gun's the same, Ammo's the same, heck even barometric pressure's the same or thereabouts. In retrospect, the one thing different is I knew going in I was short on time, maybe that's the answer. The pressure should be in the chamber, not the shooter.

 

[MrTwigg]

Any day at the range is better than a day at work.

...and almost as good as fishing.

Almost.

 

[jrod]

You hit the X Ring that time bikemutt!

 

[rhinoh]

I forgot to take magazines once.

Only once? I must be a lot older than you!

 

[jlr1962]

Magazines ....., don't want to talk about that. I spent more total money on range bought magazines than store bought magazines. I have lots more store bought magazines than range bought magazines.

 

[Gun Master]

My Bad Range Day

The only bad range day comes to mind was the fault of myself and/or "The Range Master".

I suspect I may be a little ADHD, especially when I shoot guns. At the time in question, I was in my 60's, well skilled in gun safety rules since I was age 8, I would never intentionally act dangerously, in any way.

After the time of focus, I remember the county sheriff's dept.'s "Range Master", had been saying in the background, "Sir, you are back over the yellow line, (etc.)" . The ambiguous "Sir", (over the microphone) was never personally addressed to me. I was at the end of the line, and no one came to my stall.

I was a newbie to the range, had recently belonged to a private range club, and never thought he was addressing me. In retrospect, I apparently had been tossing my target on the range table/stand, and other non-malevolent gestures, after the "cease fire" was called.

At the culmination, the "Range Master" strolled down to my stall on the end, and chewed me out, while towering his 280 lbs. frame over me, in full gear, with his hands on his Sam Brown holster, and gun, with me in a seated position.

In this imposing posture, I had to be chewed out, and told "no one was going to be shot on (his) watch". I was then told to leave.

I had not done anything wrong. The "Range Master" could and should have done his job in a more professional manner. Needless to say ,I never returned.

"Bad Day At Black Rock" I'd say.
This has been very cathartic. Glad that's over with.